Sterling Griggs

Many of you who read this will debate me on this point, but Lost was without a doubt the most intriguing and exciting show that has ever been on television.  I picked up on Lost in Season 2 and quickly rented all of the DVD's from Season 1 so that I could catch up and not be lost (pardon the pun).  Now with Netflix, I can stream all the episodes of Lost in the comfort of my own home and so over the last few months my family has been going through the whole Lost adventure again from the very beginning. A couple of the characters on the show, Jin and Sun, are from Korea and only Sun speaks English initially.  The other night we were watching a scene where these two were having an exchange in Korean while the English translation was being subtitled at the bottom of the screen.  My five year old son, who doesn't yet read, saw all of this going on and exclaimed to his older sister, "Hey, you know Spanish! What are they saying?"  Needless to say, I almost choked ...

When I was a small child I was diagnosed with a heart condition that prompted doctors to forbid me to participate in team sports.  Soccer, football, baseball, basketball.  All of those sports were off-limits on an "official" basis, but of course I played in the backyard, driveway, and gym at church.  Still, playing pickup ball was no substitute for actually being on the field or the court.  For me, the best that I could do was watch as a spectator.  Sure, that's what most of us do with sports when we get older, but as a child and young man this was a pretty dismal thing to have to accept. Once I got to college you could say that hit a rebellious streak when it came to sports.  Intramural sports was a big deal to most of the students and there was no one around to tell me not to join a team.  During my years of college I participated in weight lifting, wrestling (which was a bad idea), flag football, basketball, soccer, and softball (another bad idea,...

When I was in junior high and high school I loved to watch scary movies.  The movies then were more geared toward the suspense element than the splattergory movies that are out now, and I loved the thrill of the chase and the escape that inevitably occurred at the end of most of them.  As I have aged a little, I don't really have a taste for that genre of entertainment anymore, but there are still elements from those films that fascinate me a little as well as cause me some frustration.  Allow me to explain. If the bad guy in those movies couldn't be taken down with a bullet or a karate chop, then why not just blow him up?  Or - and not to be too graphic - just cut off his head?  Wouldn't that solve all of the problems of those innocent and naive victims who seem to always run to the darkest and creepiest parts of the house/camp/desolate building in their desperate attempts to escape?  And where are all the other people when these events are taking place?...

Not long ago, I had the chance to sit in on a group of middle school students (6th-8th grade) who were asked, "If you were the ruler of the world, what kind of rules would you have in place to lead your people?"  You can only imagine the range of silly and crazy answers that they wrote down, yet there was also no shortage of thoughtful and mature suggestions that were indicative of the younger generation's concern for our world. (These results are far from being scientific. They were implemented for fun only yet their answers are still very revealing) The Sometimes Silly No homework No roaches, bugs, prunes Eat food and listen to music in all your classes (note: they didn't abolish school altogether; at worst they made it optional) and you could leave whenever you wanted to You can wear a hat and chew gum in class Justin Bieber hangs out with them everyday (yes, this was from a girl) Everything will be reduced in price 50%; some suggested everything shoul...

If you have ever experienced that little tickle in the back of your throat that forces you to cough almost incessantly, then you know what the itch is all about.  Or if you have ever had poison oak anywhere on your body, you know how hard it is to harness that almost uncontrollable urge to scratch until you draw blood.  The itch can drive you crazy and can consume your thoughts.  It can also cause you to make rash decisions, leading to even worse choices.  The itch can be pretty powerful. But is the itch always a bad thing? What happens when our hearts and minds become consumed by the desire to be daring for God?  How about when the Lord places a people group on your heart and you just can't help but pray for them and seek ways to minister to their needs, both spiritual and physical, even to the point of traveling halfway across the world to serve them?  Or maybe you sense that God is leading you to do something radical like moving your family to a new ...

Have you seen those cars with all of the "Christian" bumper stickers on them?  You know, the ones that pretty much say "Turn or Burn" on them?  Or maybe you've had the gumption to stomach listening to one of those preachers on TV who speaks with an inflection that sounds like a case of bad hiccups and all of his language is flowered with some sort of medieval Gothic flavor.  Have you ever encountered someone at church who slaps you on the back while hollering, "God bless you brother!" in a tone of voice that would make Mr. Rogers sound angry? Christians have a way of giving off  a certain air of spirituality that can be pretty amusing.  Much of the demeanor that we portray is good-hearted in its intention, for we want the world to know that our lives are different because of Jesus Christ.  But how much of what we show the world actually has the opposite effect on those who Christ died to save? In 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Paul offers lots of instruction to t...